Thursday, 21 August 2008

How to use Environment Variable in BizTalk Server

In general Global Environment variables are offen used to specify the Folder paths to shorten the path.

I have been Installaling my Biztalk MSI’s which I got it from my Developers and getting confused to find the path where the DLL are storing in my TestServer.

As you aware each developer maintain the different folder staructrure. You can ask a question what is the big deal to maintain a different folder structrue? Yes you are correct, you can maintain your own folder structure and create a BizTalk Project however, once you deploy the interface and Build the MSI you can see the Source and Destination Location of each DLL (Biztalk Administration Console -> application-> Resource) deployed in your machine.

What is Destination Location ?This is the path your assemblyes are going to be copied when you deploy your MSI in any other Remote system(TestServer). If you maintain different folder structure it creates similar Folder structure in your TestServer while deploy.

I found some better solution to make it standardize this Destination path. This document explains you how to create Global Environtment Variables and How to use it in BizTalk.

Note:Be carefull while you create, do not tempt to delete any existing environment variable you may endup with un-necessary errors when you restart your system.

Step-2Now we need to use this GEV in our BizTalk Goto Resource and select your Assembly and Click Modiy as shown in below Image.Step-3Enter your Global Environment Variable between two % Character in Destination Location path.And build your MSI.

Repeate Step-1 in any of your Virtual PC / any Test Server and deploy your MSI and check the path which you mentioned for GEV. You cand find all your assembly files.

Some time you may get LongString error which you can avoid using Environment Variables.